i spent yesterday walking around and taking pictures of awkward communist posters. inspired by an idea from my fried Lee, this will become my own homage to 'ostalgie'--let's call it 'far ostalgie'. Ostalgie is a play on words, from 'ost' which means east in german, and nostalgia. it reflects a cultural, social, and emotional sentiment many former East Germans experienced after the reunification. it is not only a feeling, but a cultural phenomenon of collecting everything GDR, and reminiscing about the country that is gone. dont' get me wrong, i am in full support of the fall of the wall, but i can imagine it is hard to wake up and realize that the past 40 years of your life and existence are obsolete ('goodbye, lenin!" is an excellent movie that parodies that).
so back to vietnam. its communism is more subtle. you wouldnt even think it's here, other than the posters. but it's not just the posters. as i mentioned earlier the vietnamese kids wear party neck-ties; they wear party seals on their uniforms. kids go to school on saturdays, but on sundays, parks are filled with party group meetings. kids, teens, and adults fill the park alleys. sitting in the shade, dressed in identical uniforms, like oversized boy-scouts, they discuss and debate party pertinent ideas or topics, i am guessing. some groups make banners, others chant loudly in unison--excited junge Pioniere. and for a second, you feel transformed, somewhere deep into the warsaw pact circa 1985.
the vietnamese elections are in a month, and once in a while a random truck with a banner and a loud speaker will drive down the street, presumably, announcing the election and calling everyone into democratic action for the good of the party. i'm making this up, of course, as shit is being said in vietnamese and i have no idea. but it is interesting to observe: as the shops, stores, adn general life fills with capitalism, banners and political ideology persist, coexist symbiotically with hello kitty, internet cafes, and prada stores.
there is a lot about economics and politics i do not understand, but isnt capitalism the biggest enemy of a socialist state? so how does this work? how is this political ideology working when so many collapsed? an entire region of the world--eastern europe--could not survive, could not overpower the simple human will to have more, or i guess, just to have. so are vietnamese doing something better in allowing the economy to flow, half-dictated and half-driven by market forces? or are people more willing to shut up and put on a party uniform as long as they can go home to their air conditioned privatized apartments while facebooking from their very own commercially produced chinese laptop? adn in that case, does anyone still believe in the slogans or is it all for show, as long as the masses are left alone to eat, drink, and buy freely?
in talking to people here in HCMC, as it turns out, things are not so great. corruption is rampant. the economy resembles Russia of the 1990s, following the fall of teh Soviet Union, where very few became very rich quickly, and maintained a certain control, oligarchy if you will. things function poorly due to corruption and underlying bureaucracy, permeating different levels of society.
for example, young adults flee Hanoi, teh country's capital because, as the seat of the party, competition there is not just academic. for the tight and coveted university spots, regardless of how smart you are, your place may just go to a party offspring, sometimes undeservingly. similarly, with jobs tht are sometimes assigned, given, or bought. the privatization and corruption has translated into the health care as well. universal healthcare coverage means long lines and overworked physicians. an ob/gyn working for a state hospital has 3min per patient. that's 3 minutes per patient's exam, counseling, prescription, questions. as i was told, patients do not ask questions--there is no time. pediatricians, even worse, see 100 patients in half a clinic day--that's less than a minute per patient. sometimes patients are seen/examined as a group. this is all for a physician salary of about $400 a month.
so many physicians are forced to work in private clinics, on weekends, to amke extra money. here, the few who can afford it can buy time, can buy privacy, and essentially better service. the complications rates are, as i am told, lower, patients have time to ask questions. i am not advocating for privatized healthcare system. in fact, practicing in the US, i am more convinced that our current 'privatized' system is deeply flawed. but i wonder where this hybrid of (communist) state and free market economy is going. i can tell you what happens in russia or ukraine or tajikistan. and it sort of works, but only for those who have the means, not, as marx willed, for everyone according to their needs.
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